Hannah is in first grade, and as part of the language arts curriculum, each student writes a small book and then presents the book and reads it aloud at an "author's tea". Since Nexa and I are both home awaiting the impending birth of our Son Who Shall Not Yet Be Named, we were both able to attend the event where she presented her book.

This is the first time I've been available to attend this sort of thing at her school, so it was a little jarring to me to realize the actual numbers of parents and family members who show up for a 7 year old's book reading in our mildly affluent suburban town. It was (to me) surprisingly crowded, and this coupled with the fact that a first grade schoolroom is designed for people much smaller than I am, left me convinced that I was either going to destroy most of the furniture by mistake or be tied to the ground and captured by the dozens of tiny people who inhabited the strange land. Fortunately I avoided both of these fates, likely through blind luck.

We sat in a small circle with the other parents in tiny chairs (they did kindly provide a full sized one for the full sized, full term Nexa) and watched politely as the other children read their books. We both sensed a sort of theme developing as the other children presented their work. The first was titled "The Day I Won a Basketball Game". The second was "The Easter Party". Others included "My Baby Sister", "My Dog Spot", etc. All autobiographical stories of memorable events in children's lives. We still don't know if this was the original assignment...tell a story about your life, or if the other children chose these stories because they were familiar.

Then it was our daughter's turn.

She took her book from the pile and proudly held up the cover for all to see, reading the title and author aloud:

"'Snake Vs Lizard' by Hannah"

Nexa pretty much lost it laughing at the title. There followed a first person account of our daughter wandering the woods until she came upon the eponymous snake and lizard preparing to do battle. She wisely hid behind a log (we're fairly certain the log came into play because it's easier to draw oneself hidden behind a log) and observed the battle, which the text informed us lasted an hour.

Spoiler alert!

Snake wins.

Write what you know, baby girl, write what you know.

Edited, Jun 7th 2012 1:38pm by Smasharoo

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I love the stegosaurus (lizard)!! This reminds me of one of my favorite Joph Jr stories, which I think happened when he was either seven or eight. We were outside raking fall leaves after he came home from Grandma's, and he confessed that Grandma had let him watch Jurassic Park on dvd, which at that time he was not yet allowed to watch. I asked him if it scared him or he liked it, or what and he said that it mostly bothered him, the velociraptors. I thought "**** yeah, they're scary" so I asked, Me: What bothered you about them? JJr: Well, the movie's called Jurassic Park, right? Me: Yeah... JJr: (indignant) Velociraptors are late Cretaceous! Me:....

Then again, this is the same kid that came home from school almost in angry tears because Pluto was no longer a planet ("That's crap!").

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That's the kind of dude I was lookin' for And yes you'll get slapped if you're lookin', ho

I love the stegosaurus (lizard)!! This reminds me of one of my favorite Joph Jr stories, which I think happened when he was either seven or eight. We were outside raking fall leaves after he came home from Grandma's, and he confessed that Grandma had let him watch Jurassic Park on dvd, which at that time he was not yet allowed to watch. I asked him if it scared him or he liked it, or what and he said that it mostly bothered him, the velociraptors. I thought "**** yeah, they're scary" so I asked, Me: What bothered you about them? JJr: Well, the movie's called Jurassic Park, right? Me: Yeah... JJr: (indignant) Velociraptors are late Cretaceous! Me:....

Then again, this is the same kid that came home from school almost in angry tears because Pluto was no longer a planet ("That's crap!").

He's right though. It's also unlikely that they behaved the way they do in the movie and the poison spitting dinosaur is pretty much a big question mark as well since something like that would never be preserved in fossils.

Basically,t eh whole movie is rather shaky on the dinosaur part. It's still awesome though.

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Theophany wrote:YOU'RE AN ELITIST @#%^ AETHIEN, NO WONDER YOU HAVE NO FRIENDS AND PEOPLE HATE YOU. someproteinguy wrote:Aethien you take more terrible pictures than a Japanese tourist. Astarin wrote:One day, Maz, you'll learn not to click on anything Aeth links.

I think the point of having the poison-spitting dilophosaurs was to illustrate that the fossil record is not a good way to see what these animals were like in real life, and also that cloning a long-extinct animal is a pretty risky venture.